


stegosaurus

by deltachye



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, F/M, Fluff, Gift Fic, Reader-Insert, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-18 15:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18252497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [reader x tsukishima kei]hbd brooke !





	stegosaurus

Kei wasn’t ever the kind of guy to crumble under pressure. It didn’t matter if it was a game or a test; his general apathy was strong enough to stifle any unsightly nerves. He’d gone under the wire plenty of times before. Grueling deuce matches. Five minutes left with a whole booklet of long answer questions left to do. Akiteru trying to steal pieces of food out of his bowl when he wasn’t looking carefully.

So why was he having a mental breakdown over a _birthday present_?

The calendar notification had been in his phone for almost a year. **[Name]’s birthday**. Don’t forget! And, even though he knew it had been coming, he’d just put it off. That was the worst part, he thought. He’d known the whole time, and he knew procrastinating was a sin. But he’d think about her present later. He’d think about what to get her later. It was fine, he had plenty of time to pick it up later.

It was now later—actually, it was the _day freaking of_ —and guess what? He was empty handed.

Yamaguchi had gotten her a book she’d apparently been meaning to read. Kei was at a loss. He’d never even known that [Name] could actually _read_ , with the goofy way she acted. Though he supposed he should’ve known. She was smart, almost brilliantly so. It wasn’t just book smarts. She had an air of bright wit about her, even if she managed to say the stupidest things. It was kind of endearing. Kei actually had half a mind to bully Yamaguchi into giving him the present; but that’d just be mean and bullshitted, so he’d have to come up with something better. 

It was T minus soon until the party began. [Name]’s girlfriends had organized it, but he’d been surprised to get an invite at all. The two of them were close, he guessed, though he was hesitant to let that teeter further. He didn’t like things he didn’t know inside out. So he hazed her, she jostled him back. It was an easy, comfortable friendship—though it wasn’t like the one with Yamaguchi, because he didn’t _need_ to talk to Yamaguchi every day. With [Name], he felt like something was wrong if they didn’t at least send a meme on social media once in the day. Was that strange of him? Weird for a friendship between a guy and a girl?

Anyways, he was starting to think he wasn’t that good of a friend, after all. What the hell did this chick even like? Soap? Did women even like soap?! His mother seemed happy to get things like face masks and skin tonics. But he didn’t think comparing a young girl to his mom was fair. He could go the easy route and pick up a box of chocolates. Or cookies. Was that too romantic, though? Valentine’s day like? What about a gift card? Or was that too easy?

He was fully aware that he running himself into walls. Kei never overthought like this. Hell, he was halfway through a SOS text to his dumb _brother_ before he stopped himself. There was nothing for him here. Even if he got her a basic crowd-pleasing present, he didn’t think he’d be satisfied. This was the one area of his life, besides his academics, where he really wanted to do more than enough. This was actually important, loathe as he was to admit it. But it was looking like a do or die, now or nothing moment. He didn’t think he had been this nervous about something since… well, ever. [Name] seemed to do that to him. 

He waited until he was ten minutes late—fashionably late, but not inconveniently so—and rung the doorbell. [Name] was the one to open. His heart instantly stuttered. He’d never really seen her outside of the school uniform or gym clothes. She was wearing a spring dress, patterned with sunflowers and glittery thread. And—was that makeup? 

“Hey, Tsukki!” she greeted brightly. “You made it! Come in.”

“Right,” he mumbled, tearing his gaze away from her sparkling eyes. The mascara coating her dark lashes and the innocent pink eyeshadow was seizing his heart in ways he’d never felt before. He felt stupid. Absolutely brain dead. 

Yamaguchi was already sitting on the couch, thank god. Presents in boxes and bags were piled up on the table. [Name] had an assortment of friends, some he’d seen before and some he hadn’t. He suddenly felt like he stuck out like a sore thumb (though that much he was used to, what with his height and all). He wedged his present in the middle of the table so that it was covered by everything else. Losing confidence wasn’t something he was accustomed to, but there’s a first for everything.

Maybe he should’ve skipped out on the party and just given his present to her late. But he knew she would’ve been mad at him if he ditched her on her birthday, even if she was with other friends. Maybe she’d be less mad and more disappointed. Somehow, the thought of that hurt more. 

His heart was racing so loudly that he barely heard anything, especially not the line of, “open your presents now!” It jolted him back to reality and he looked to [Name] as she shrugged shyly.

“’Kay… well, I’m just going to pick randomly then.”

His heart stopped when she plucked his plain bag out of the centre. She checked the tag and her face broke out into a beaming smile. Her eyes found his immediately, and he wondered if she could tell that he was blushing.

“Tsukki? Well, well…”

It was clear she expected him to have gotten a gag gift. Maybe he should’ve done that. It would’ve spared him the embarrassment of her dramatically pulling a goddamn stuffed dinosaur of the bag like it was Arthur’s sword in the stone.

“A dino?” she murmured. The puzzlement of both her and the crowd was obvious, and Kei regretted not explaining everything on a card so that he wouldn’t have to openly expose himself in front of an audience. Kei’s a Loser—stand-up comedy for the club! But he steeled his jaw and pretended to sound nonchalant.

“You talked about how dorky you thought mine were, so I figured you deserved one of your own. Since you’re a dork yourself. But also, it’ll remind you of me. Or whatever.”

Her eyes lit up as he talked, and he shut himself up before he could keep rambling to salvage his dignity. He hadn’t been able to bear maintaining eye contact, so he looked away sharply—missing her movements as she got up from the floor, crossing the room to throw her arms around him. One hand was still clutching the stegosaurus, her favourite colour, its soft head resting on his back. He sat paralyzed, stock still as she squeezed him.

“Thanks, Kei.” With a curtain of hair, she laid a very chaste kiss against his jaw, hidden away from the rest as it looked like she whispered something. She pulled back, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She hugged the dinosaur to her chest. “I’ll cherish it.”

And, although he was relieved, his heart wouldn’t stop pounding for the rest of the night. Was it his birthday too? Because the gift she’d given him was positively magical.


End file.
